Thursday, October 10, 2013

The big problem with my letting this
thing go so long between issues is that I tend to forget things.
Like when NPCs tell me where the next town is. I had to go to VGMaps
and look it up, and once I did, I remembered that somebody from last
time told me that Marse was right up the coast of the same continent
as Bakku and Linze. Which is not to say that I did not benefit from
the mistake. I could probably use an extra level or two for my
characters, and most of them got one while I was diddling around in
what must be the Fargo Islands

And it brings up one of those things
that I'll probably spend years and years meaning to write something
about, too, in that a lot of the other RPGs like this that I've
played have had world maps of some sort to consult in the game,
especially starting around the time that games like, say, Breath
of Fire, Final
Fantasy 4, and this one came out. Of note, the last two on that
list don't actually have in-game maps. It's just that I never really
felt like I needed one for FF4.

But anyway, the game at hand. After
finally getting to Marse, it's time to find Brandt and his
girlfriend. We know we're in the right place when we get to the
shrine and find Brandt's girlfriend there, saying she's all worried
about the guy, because their wedding is coming up in the next couple
days and he's still at a place called Loire Island. Maybe Laguna's
family is from there?

Turns out, though, it's not just that
Brandt's liable to be late for his own wedding because of his
research. There's also pirates hiding out at Loire Island, according
to one of the many pleasure-cruise ship captains hanging out at the
port in Marse. The inference we're supposed to make here is that the
pirates have our buddy Brandt and we're going to have to rescue him
and get him to his wedding in order to get his help in gathering the
Alumina and fixing our ship.

Naturally, knowing me, I'd go and end
this issue the same way I started it, by getting lost simply because
the directions were a little screwy this time. There are three
islands we'll have to visit to finish this fetch quest here: Elba,
which is pretty much straight north of Marse, Loire, which is
northeast of town, and Ulupp, which is southeast of town. What makes
that confusing is that the guy who told us about the pirates also
told us where the islands were relative to the town said north, east,
and south, which wasn't exactly right, but forgivable, I suppose,
given the layout of the islands, relative to the continent.

And it's still no excuse, really,
because this should have been easy enough to figure out anyway. You
see, Loire Island is the one with the big-ass cave on the island and
a pirate ship parked by the shore. But because I've spent so much
time screwing around on the other islands, I'm going to have to end
this here and pick this up next time, when we go to Laguna's
Island.